Overclocking i3

Just wondering if the low end of the "i" series is as overclockable as the high end. I'm looking at a Toshiba laptop with an i3-350M. Any special considerations or restrictions?

You have a laptop, you shouldnt be overclocking really. It is not made to handle the extra heat that it will put out, not to mention a shortening of battery life as well as the bios is not likely to have any overclocking options available.

If you want to overclock an i3, I suggest buying a desktop.

EarthDog said:

...as well as the bios is not likely to have any overclocking options available...

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That's really my question. Is the bios locked down or restricted?

I dont know. I dont own your laptop. Why dont you go into it and look......

bios will be very limited on options, clock speed and ram speeds will be locked

your option in bios will basically be boot and power

I would be willing to bet that Toshiba doesn't allow any overclocking of their laptops...They are laptops. The heat would make them little ovens on your lap...I would say you should be looking at desktops if you are looking to O/C

Thanks guys, but I already have a well overclocked desktop that doubles as a space heater in winter.

I don't own the laptop yet but am looking at them, at my wife's insistence, to take on trips.

I am curious about overclocking the i3 because Intel has made much of their unlocked i series. I'm also curious about the performance of Intel's integrated graphics, (or lack of it). I don't expect much but comparisons are always interesting. 32nm should open some interesting possibilities for future higher performance integrated GPUs.

jchunter said:

I am curious about overclocking the i3 because Intel has made much of their unlocked i series. I'm also curious about the performance of Intel's integrated graphics, (or lack of it). I don't expect much but comparisons are always interesting. 32nm should open some interesting possibilities for future higher performance integrated GPUs.

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To my knowledge there are no unlocked i3 chips. It's only the new i5 655K, and i7 875K.. and of course their thousand dollar extreme edition chips.

I doubt Toshiba will have an unlocked BIOS that would enable you to overclock. Almost all major brands disable such features, as laptops have very little headroom for the increased heat load generated by OC'ing. You may be able to use software to do so.. but I'm sure you know how the majority feels about software OC'ing lol. If you're looking for a laptop to OC, I suggest looking at brands like ASUS, MSI, or CyberpowerPC.